Maybe this has never happened to you, or maybe it has.  You walk into a store and you see someone who looks familiar to you.  You know that you know them from somewhere, but you cannot recall their name or where you know them from.  Perhaps you walk up to them and say, “Don’t I know you?”

While it is often easy for us to remember faces, remembering names or where we may have seen someone before can sometimes be difficult.  Many times it does not matter that we cannot remember every passing acquaintance in our lives, because most likely they do not remember us either.

 However, if this is a person that we have an intimate relationship with, we had better remember their name and where we know them from!  This leads to the question of whether or not we know God, and if He knows us.  The importance of knowing God, really knowing Him, is seen in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians.  Paul writes, “and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thes. 1:7-8).  Since Jesus will take vengeance on those who do not know God, it is imperative that we know Him.

 It is also important that God knows who we are.  Towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus declares that those who call Him Lord, but fail to do the will of the Father will be like those He does not know.  They will be told to depart from Him for eternity (Matthew 7:21-23).  We need to know God.  We need for God to know us.  Do you know Him today?